Killing Bliss (10 page)

Her breathing quickened, and she could smell the wet hay in the shed, feel the prickle of it against her naked back.

The ropes...
"If you don't spread them, baby, I'll do it myself."
The screams...
"Shut up, whore. You let Vanelleto in, you let me in. You got that?"
The pain
... "Now who'd have thought it, a fuckin' virgin. Looks like I beat Vanelleto to it after all."
The laughter...
"Might as well really break you in, have myself some real fun. Got all the time in the world to do it."

The blood, the terror, the endless run...

On some level, she'd been running ever since.

Beauty dropped her hand from the wheel, stroked the short, sleek barrel of the gun that rested on her thigh, and experienced a sudden, acute surge of power—and conviction.

If I'd had you back then, baby...

Again, she glanced in the rearview mirror. The Chrysler was still there. Ignoring the shiver in her spine, she caressed the revolver and set it carefully on the empty passenger seat.

Her new companion, her lethal new friend.

"You're a dead man, Bliss, you just don't know it yet," she spoke the words into the rearview mirror, her mouth twisted into a cold smile. "And you're not getting within five hundred miles of Addy or Gus."

Her heart settled into a steady, easy beat, and her fear lifted, leaving her feeling loose, eerily relaxed.

She was no longer afraid, no longer the hunted.

She'd become the hunter.

She was going to kill Frank Bliss—commit a cold-blooded murder. But before doing that, she'd lead him as far away as possible. She'd choose her moment—like he'd done years ago when he'd lured her into that filthy shed—and she'd do it in her own time. Slowly.

And she knew exactly where she'd fire the first bullet.

* * *

Roxanne Lintz was surprisingly easy to find.

Mainly because she was dying.

When Hep C had brought on a failing liver, she'd been taken in by a small charity-run hospice in Tacoma, a short drive south of Seattle.

Cade found her in an upstairs room, sitting by the window in a clutter of books and magazines. A TV sat unused at the foot of her unmade bed. The furniture was old and battered, but the place was clean, and a fistful of fresh flowers sat in a painted can on the windowsill. A magazine rested forgotten on her lap as she stared out the window.

"Mrs. Lintz?"

She looked up him, her expression mild and questioning. "Yes?"

Even ill and well past fifty, her skin a sickly yellow, she was beautiful; her features were fine, her hair—well below her shoulders—still shadowed with the dark auburn of yesterday. It didn't take much imagination to visualize the younger, vibrant Roxanne Lintz. "I'm Cade Harding. I called."

She set the magazine aside but didn't get up. "Yes. You said you wanted to talk about my girl." She gestured to the bed, the only other place to sit in the small room.

When he'd taken a seat, she went on, "I have no idea where she is, you know." She smoothed her hair back behind her ears, her hands painfully frail and weak. "And if I did know, I wouldn't tell you."

"Actually, I'm not looking for your daughter. I'm looking for a friend of hers, Addilene Wartenski."

She shook her head. "Don't know her. But then I didn't know any of Dianna's friends—except that boy she ran off with." She frowned. "Can't remember his name. Lived down the hall for a time. Good-looking boy"—she grimaced and shook her head—"but then they always are, aren't they?"

"Excuse me?"

She looked away. "The ones who cause all the trouble. Tall, handsome, full of dreams. Their mouths dripping in sugar and promises. Like they say, 'every woman's dream, every mother's nightmare.'"

Cade let her be, waited.

"Add to that, Dianna didn't like my line of work."

"You fought?"

She shook her head. "Dianna didn't bother with the fighting part. She just came to me one night—when I was working—and said she was leaving." She looked away, then back. "Said she didn't want a whore for a mother. She was thirteen. I saw her once after that. Downtown... can't remember where. When she saw me she took off, and I let her go." She stroked her thigh with a too-thin, long-fingered hand. "A woman like me, in the trade? Never should have had a kid. But when she came, I thought—" She stopped abruptly. "It doesn't matter what I thought."

"You loved her."

"Yeah, I loved her. But it didn't stop me from screwing up. Big-time. But when Lund—" She stopped again, looked out the window.

"Lund?" he prodded.

"Lund Baylor. A client, and an okay guy. Didn't say much. I almost married him. Maybe if I had, things would have been different. He wanted me to quit the trade, put a white fence around me." She sighed softly, then shrugged. "But I was making good money. Looked a lot better then than I do now"—her smile was quick and proud—"and I wanted to hang on for a while, get a stake... The upshot was, Lund took off. Dianna and him had kind of hit it off, you know. And when he left, she left."

She pushed herself out of the chair and took the two or three steps to the window. It seemed to take all her strength. "Lund bought himself some kind of resort or something, north somewhere, up near the Canadian border—a place called Star Lake. Dianna went to him after that awful murder business. He called me to let me know she was okay. I was thinking I'd go up there, but she didn't stay long, took off with some truck driver, Lund said. Never heard a word after that." A sad twist of a smile altered her face from wistful to cynical. "Like mother, like daughter."

"She never called you?"

She shook her head slowly. "Haven't heard her voice or set eyes on her for over sixteen years."

"Did you tell the police—about Lund? Her going there?"

She snorted derisively and sat down again as if the effort of standing by the window had drained her. "I'm a hooker, remember? Hookers don't talk to cops, and even if I did, Lund wouldn't have. He didn't like cops any more than I did. Spent a few years behind bars somewhere along the line. Never said what for." She paused. "I probably shouldn't be talking to you, either. I don't want to give my girl any more trouble. She had me for a mother. That was enough for any kid."

"She got herself involved in a bad situation."

"Maybe, but that's life, isn't it? One long line of 'bad situations.' She didn't kill anyone. No way. She wouldn't know how."

Cade wasn't going to argue with a mother's heart, even if it hadn't cared enough when it damn well should have. "Probably not, probably just afraid. And like I said, I'm not looking for your daughter, Mrs. Lintz, I'm looking for Addilene Wartenski. She was with Dianna in the house that night. There's a chance they ran away together." He stood. "If you could tell me where I can find Baylor, he may know something."

"If he did, he'd have a hard time telling you." She raised her eyes to his, looking tired and empty. "Lund's dead." She opened a drawer in her bedside stand and pulled out a jeweler's box, offered it to him.

Cade opened it. Inside there was a gold bracelet inscribed
All my love, Lund.
And a note.

You'll get this when I pass on, Rox, because I want you to know you were always the one for me. Too bad about us, but it was your choice. But I never did stop thinking about you. This here bracelet proves that.

There was a P.S.

Don't you worry about your Dianna. Or about what people say. She'll be okay. She's a strong one, and her and her friend are good girls. I did the best I could for her while she was here.

Cade held out the note and box to return it and, for a moment, it linked them. Love lost. Cade knew all about that. "Lund Baylor," he said gently, "One of your regrets, Roxanne?"

She sealed her lips into a tight line, took the box from his hand, and put it back in the drawer. She fingered the note a moment before lifting desolate eyes to meet his. "The biggest in a life filled with them." She turned away. "Good-bye, Harding."

When he reached the door and had his hand on the doorknob, she spoke again, quietly. "Harding?"

"Uh-huh?"

Silence.

"If you find my girl, hear anything about her, would you let me know? Before I... go, it would be nice to know she made it somehow."

He turned. She was facing the window and didn't look back at him. "Count on it," he said.

Outside, he didn't immediately get in his car. Instead, he walked across the street to a seedy half-block neighborhood park. The grass was brown and dry, and what was left of a children's play area rusted forlornly in the far corner: two broken swings and a lumpy slide that would do a hell of a job of tearing a kid's pants.

He sat on a wooden bench, feeling bleak—and angry. In an odd way, Roxanne Lintz reminded him of Susan Moore. Both had used the same expression, "I let her go." One, because she didn't believe she could do any more for a self-destructing, drug-addicted girl, the other because the call of the trade, money, meant more to her than providing a decent life for her daughter.

I let her go....

Dana had used those same words. "I let him go, Cade. You have to find him, you have to."

He clasped his hands between his knees and dropped his head.
I didn't find him for you, love. I tried. God, how I tried....

"Fuck." He stood, straight and abruptly.

He was going home, he was going to have a beer, and he was going to find Star Lake. A dead end? Probably. But it was a place to go—and he was sick and tired of talking to himself.

He had a child to find, then a life to try and live.

Maybe Baylor was gone, and no doubt the Wartenski girl split years ago, but there was a chance someone in that small town might remember something.

Anything.

Chapter 7

"Addy. You're not going to believe this." Toby was close to hopping down the path to Cabin One, where Addy was putting the last paint strokes on the door trim.

"What?" she said, not taking her eyes off the bright blue ready to drip from the edge of her brush. She'd been a workaholic ever since her last call from Beauty—two days ago. And because she jumped every time the phone rang, she'd been happy enough to leave the office to Toby and keep herself busy with the maintenance.

"That last call"—he gestured with his head toward the office—"it was someone called Mrs. Jesse Nordham. She says her daughter's getting married in the spring, and there are a lot of guests coming from out of town. She says she drives by our place on her way to work, and she's noticed how much work's been done."

"And?" Addy made the last stroke, stood back and studied her work.

"And... she thinks this'd be a perfect spot for her guests." He paused, puffed up his chest. "All twelve cabins. In early March. Can you believe that?"

Addy's first thought was
will I still be here in March?
But she shoved it aside, determined to act as normal as she could, considering Frank Bliss stood at the edge of her life like some not-so jolly green giant.
One day at a time, Addilene, one day at a time. And today is a good day.
"That's great, Toby. What dates exactly?" She rested her brush on the edge of the can, poured some paint thinner on her blue hands—she was a thorough, but messy painter—and rubbed at them with a rag.

"Well, now, that's the next part," he said. "She wants to come by and see the inside of the cabins, make sure the place isn't all show on the outside and crappy on the inside."

"She said that? The crappy bit?"

"No, not in those words, but I got her meaning." He smiled.

She smiled back. "Most of them are crappy... but by spring they'll be, if not chic, at least cute." She thought a moment. "If she comes, I can show Four, Six, and Eight. That'll give her an idea. The others"—she waved the paint rag in a circle—"she'll have to trust me on."

"That's what I figured. Anyway, I told her to come by next week sometime. That okay?"

"Okay," she said. "Thanks, Toby." Despite the black fog of worry she'd been in for the last two days, Addy couldn't help the surge of satisfaction warming her breast—Star Lake being noticed by someone driving by and looking good enough for her to call was a big turning point.